Hunter, In Darkness

Revisiting the proto-text adventure Hunt the Wumpus, this game gathers the essential elements -- pursuing a monster through a bat-infested maze of caves -- and casts an existential narrative over what were fundamentally random, arbitrary and amoral actions in the original game. A light-hearted game about killing the foozle takes on new life as the player's text adventure input reveals the story of a champion consigned to a hardscrabble existence reduced to the two elements in the game's title -- a job, wearying and dangerous -- in an unsafe work environment that swallows up men and makes widows of their wives. Wounding the Wumpus is one thing, a trifle that the game throws back in the player's face, but can the player transcend the endless cycle of butchery and emerge out the other end any less a victim than his slain opponents?